The Broom-Squire - Sabine Baring-Gould (life books to read .txt) 📗

giving Matabel to--I mean flying in the face of Providence."

"I shall be very glad to take it, and thus relieve your mind of all care."

"Oh, it's no care at all."

"It must be, and besides--it must interfere with your turning your mind to serious thoughts."

"Oh, not at all. I can't give you the money. It is not for you."

"No; but it is for Matabel, and we are one."

"Oh, no; it's not for Matabel."

"The hundred and fifty pounds is not for Matabel? And yet you said it was intended to make up to her for something you did not exactly explain."

"No, it is not for Matabel. Matabel might have had it, I daresay, but my old woman said she was set against that."

"Then we are to be deprived of it by her folly?" The Broom-Squire flushed purple.

"Oh, no. It is all right. It is for the child."

"For the child! That is all the same. I am the father, and will take care of the money."

"But I can't give it you."

"Have you not got it?"

"The money is all right. Sanna's hundred pounds--I know where that is, and my fifty shall go along with it. I was always fond of Matabel. But the child was only baptized to-day, and won't be old enough to enjoy it for many years."

"In the meantime it can be laid out to its advantage," urged Bideabout.

"I daresay," said Simon, "but I've nothin' to do with that, and you've nothin' to do with that."

"Then who has?"

"Iver, of course."

"Iver!" The Broom-Squire turned livid as a corpse.

"You see," pursued the host, "Sanna said as how she wouldn't make me trustee, I was too old, and I might be dead, or done something terrible foolish, before the child came of age to take it on itself, to use her very words. So she wouldn't make me trustee, but she put it all into Iver's hands to hold for the little chap. She were a won'erful shrewd woman were Sanna, and I've no doubt she was right."

"Iver trustee--for my child!"

"Yes--why not?"

The Broom-Squire stood up, and without tasting the glass of punch mixed for him, without a farewell to the landlord, went forth.


CHAPTER XXXIII.


MARKHAM.

The funeral of Mrs. Verstage was conducted with all the pomp and circumstance that delight the rustic mind. Bideabout attended, and his hat was adorned with a black silk weeper that was speedily converted by Mehetabel, at his desire, into a Sunday waistcoat.

In this silk waistcoat he started on old Clutch one day for Guildford, without informing his wife or sister whither he was bound.

The child was delicate and fretful, engaging most of its mother's time and engrossing all her thought.

She had found an old cradle of oak, with a hood to it, the whole quaintly and rudely carved, the rockers ending in snakes' heads, in which several generations of Kinks had lain; in which, indeed, Jonas had spent his early infancy, and had pleaded for his mother's love and clamored for her attention. Whether with the thought of amusing the child, or merely out of the overflow of motherly love that seeks to adorn and glorify the babe, Mehetabel had picked the few late flowers that lingered on in spite of frost, some pinched chrysanthemums, a red robin that had withstood the cold, some twigs of butcher's broom with blood-red berries that had defied it, and these she had stuck about the cradle in little gimlet holes that had been drilled round the edge, probably to contain pegs that might hold down a cover, to screen out glaring sun or cutting draught.

Now, as Mehetabel rocked the cradle and knitted, singing to the sobbing child, the flowers wavered about the infant, forming a wreath of color, and freshening the air with their pure fragrance. Each flower in itself was without much perceptible savor, yet the whole combined exhaled a healthy, clean, and invigorating waft as of summer air over a meadow.

The wreath that surrounded the child was not circular but oblong, almost as though engirding a tiny grave, but this Mehetabel did not see.

Playing the cradle with her foot, with the sun shining in at the window and streaking the foot, she sang--


"My heart is like a fountain true
That flows and flows with love to you;
As chirps the lark unto the tree,
So chirps my pretty babe to me.
And it's O! sweet, sweet! and a lullaby."


But the answer was a peevish moan from the bed. The young mother stooped over the cradle.


"Oh, little lark! little lark! this is no chirp,
Would you were as glad and as gay as the lark!"


Then, resuming her rocking, she sang,


"There's not a rose where'er I seek
As comely as my baby's cheek.
There's not a comb of honey bee,
So full of sweets as babe to me.
And it's O! sweet, sweet! and a lullaby."


Again she bowed over the crib, and all the rocking flowers quivered and stood still.

"Baby, darling! Why are there such poor roses in your little cheek? I would value them above all the China roses ever grown! Look at the Red Robin, my sweet, my sweet, and become as pink as is that."


"There's not a star that shines on high
Is brighter than my baby's eye.
There's not a boat upon the sea
Can dance as baby does to me.
And it's O! sweet, sweet, and a lullaby."

"No silk was ever spun so fine
As is the hair of baby mine.
My baby smells more sweet to me
Than smells in spring the elder tree.
And it's O! sweet, sweet, and a lullaby!"


The child would not sleep.

Again the mother stayed the rocking of the cradle, and the swaying of the flowers.

She lifted the little creature from its bed carefully lest the sharp-leafed butcher's broom should scratch it. How surrounded was that crib with spikes, and they poisonous! And the red berries oozed out of the ribs of the cruel needle-armed leaves, like drops of heart's blood.

Mehetabel took her child to her bosom, and rocked her own chair, and as she rocked, the sunbeam flashed across her face, and then she was in shadow, then another flash, and again shadow, and from her face, when sunlit, a reflection of light flooded the little white dress of the babe, and illumined the tiny arm, and restless fingers laid against her bosom.


"A little fish swims in the well,
So in my heart does baby dwell.
A little flower blows on the tree,
My baby is the flower to me.
And It's O! sweet, sweet! and a lullaby!"


A wondrous expression of peace and contentment was on Mehetabel's face. None of the care and pain that had lined it, none of the gloom of hopelessness that had lain on it, had left now thereon a trace. In her child all her hope was centred, all her love culminated.


"The King has sceptre, crown and ball.
You are my sceptre, crown and all,
For all his robes of royal silk.
More fair your skin, as white as milk.
And it's O! sweet, sweet, and a lullaby!

"Ten thousand parks where deer may run,
Ten thousand roses in the sun.
Ten thousand pearls beneath the sea.
My babe, more precious is to me.
And it's O! sweet, sweet, and a lullaby!"


Presently gentle sleep descended on the head of the child, the pink eyelids closed, the restless hand ceased to grope and clutch, and the breath came evenly. Mehetabel laid her little one again in its cradle, and recommenced the rocking with the accompanying swaying of the flowers.

Now that the child was asleep Mehetabel sat lightly swinging the cradle, afraid to leave it at rest lest that of her infant should again be broken.

She thought of the death of her almost mother Susanna Verstage, the only woman that had shown her kindness, except the dame of the school she had attended as a child.

Mehetabel's heart overflowed with tender love towards the deceased, she fully, frankly forgave her the cruel blow whereby she had wounded her, and had driven her out of her house and into that of Jonas. And yet it was a deadly wrong: a wrong that could never be redressed. The wound dealt her would canker her heart away; it was of such a nature that nothing could heal it. Mehetabel was well aware of this. She could see brightness before her in one direction only. From her child alone could she derive hope and joy in the future. And yet she forgave Mrs. Verstage with a generous forgiveness which was part of her nature. She would forgive Jonas anything, everything, if he would but acknowledge his wrong, and turn to her in love.

And now she found that she could think of Iver without a quickening of her pulses.

In her love for her babe all other loves had been swallowed up, refined, reduced in force. She loved Iver still, but only as a friend, a brother. Her breast had room for one prevailing love only--that of her child.

As she sat, slightly rocking the cradle, and with a smile dimpling her cheek, a knock sounded at the door, and at her call there entered a young man whom she had seen during the winter with Jonas. He was a gentleman, and she had been told that he had lodged at the Huts, and she knew that he had engaged the Broom-Squire to attend him, when duck-shooting, at the Fransham ponds.

Mehetabel apologized for not rising as he entered, and pointed to the cradle.

"My name is Markham," said the young man, "I have come to see Mr. Kink. This is his house, I believe?"

"Yes, sir; but he is not at home."

"Will he be long absent?"

"I do not know. Will you please to take a chair?"

"Thank you." The young gentleman seated himself, wiped his brow, and threw his cap on the floor.

"I want some fishing. I made Mr. Kink's acquaintance, shooting, during the winter. Excuse me, are you his sister or his wife?"

"His wife, sir."

"You are very young."

To this Mehetabel made no reply.

"And uncommonly pretty," pursued Mr. Markham, looking at her with admiration. "Where the deuce did the Broom-Squire pick you up?"

The young mother was annoyed--a little color formed in her cheek. "Can I give a message to Jonas?" she asked.

"A message? Tell him he's a lucky dog. By heaven! I had no idea that a pearl lay at the bottom of the Punch-Bowl. And that is your baby?"

"Yes, sir."

Mehetabel lightly raised the sheet that covered the child's head.

The stranger stooped and looked at the sleeping child,